(Khayyam uses a lot of bawdy language, which embarrassed the Victorians. I think it sounds contemporary, like a raw rock song, and don’t think it should be covered up with elevated diction. Wine is a central metaphor for Khayyam. It probably means imbibing the meaning of life. Some have interpreted him as a libertine, and there is no doubt he was a humanist who advised people to enjoy life. Others make him a Sufi mystic and see wine as a symbol of intoxication with God. If wine just meant literally either the good life or divine intoxication, however, then why suggest his drinking companions wake up from their stupor just to drink more? They are missing out on something more than being drunk, whatever “drunk” means.)

Am I totally out of it? I thought Islam forbade the drinking of alcohol. … I just checked out Wikipedia, and it says that the Q’uran singles out alcohol consumption of one of five punishable crimes: “unlawful intercourse, false accusation of unlawful intercourse, consumption of alcohol, theft, and highway robbery.”

Thank you for these lovely translations. I believe that, unlike some mystical poets, to Khayyam, who was a philosopher and one of the greatest freethinkers of all times, wine is the symbol of intellectual emancipation and the rejection of religious hypocrisy and dogmatism. He has a number of poems in the form of “guyand…” (it is said) and “man miguyam…” (but I say) in which he clearly rejects the idea of pure wine in heaven in favor of the juice of the grape. In my feeble translation of the first two lines (and I hope Juan will translate it into good English), one of the quatrains reads:

“It is said heaven with wine and houris is pleasant,
But I say the juice of the grape is pleasant
Ah, take the cash in hand and wave the rest;
Oh, the brave music of a distant drum!”

or

“It is said there will be a paradise with beautiful Houris
There will flow pure wine and honey;
If we have chosen the wine and the beloved, why blame us,
For this is going to be our lot at the end!”

There are quite a few quatrains like this, which make it clear that by wine he means the juice of the grape.

In another quatrain translated by Fitzgerald he again refers to wine as “tearing the garment of repentance”

Come, Fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling;
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly – and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing